Get carried away with the Friz and her class as they take a whirlwind journey into the world of butterflies!Hi, I'm Phoebe, one of the kids in Ms. Frizzle's class. When we started our unit on butterflies, I figured I would get to see a live butterfly - but I never thought I would get to be one. But when Ms. Frizzle took us on our butterfly field trip, she accidentally turned us all into butterflies! But being a butterfly wasn't all fun and games. We had to battle all kinds of things: wind, birds, even people! We knew we had to win this Butterfly Battle -- before things got carried away!
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In music recording, the quality of a mix is every bit as important as the quality of the performance, and potential hit singles have been ruined by poor mixing. This helpful guide blows the lid off the secrets of mixing and explains in easy and illustrate
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Classicist, professor, and farmer Hanson chronicles the decline of small-scale agriculture in the Central Valley of California. He takes his classics seriously, likening the raisin farmers of Modesto to Aeschylus' ideal virtuous man, who "did not wish to seem just, but to be so." He takes modern cultural dictates less seriously: "Is it not odd," he writes, "to rise at dawn with Japanese-, Mexican-, Pakistani-, Armenian-, and Portuguese-American farmers and then be lectured at noonday 40 miles away on campus about cultural sensitivity and the need for 'diversity' by the affluent white denizens of an exclusive, tree-studded suburb?" Hanson relates the life stories of his farmer neighbors, writing that their way of life will likely soon disappear, thanks in part to a federal system of agricultural subsidies that favors large-scale, industrial farm corporations over individual "yeomen." This is a sobering and eye-opening book.
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Product Description The roller-coaster rags-to-riches story behind the phenomenal success of Pixar Animation Studios: the first in-depth look at the company that forever changed the film industry and the "fraternity of geeks" who shaped it. The Pixar Touch is a story of technical innovation that revolutionized animation, transforming hand-drawn cel animation to computer-generated 3-D graphics. Its a triumphant business story of a company that began with a dream, remained true to the ideals of its foundersantibureaucratic and artist drivenand ended up a multibillion-dollar success. We meet Pixars technical genius and founding CEO, Ed Catmull, who dreamed of becoming an animator, inspired by Disneys Peter Pan and Pinocchio, realized he would never be good enough, and instead enrolled in the then new field of computer science at the University of Utah. It was Catmull who founded the computer graphics lab at the New York Institute of Technology and who wound up at Lucasfilm during the first Star Wars trilogy, running the computer graphics department, and found a patron in Steve Jobs, just ousted from Apple Computer, who bought Pixar for five million dollars. Catmull went on to win four Academy Awards for his technical feats and helped to create some of the key computer-generated imagery software that animators rely on today. Price also writes about John Lasseter, who catapulted himself from unemployed animator to one of the most powerful figures in American filmmaking; animation was the only thing he ever wanted to do (he was inspired by Disneys The Sword in the Stone), and Prices book shows how Lasseter transformed computer animation from a novelty into an art form. The author writes as well about Steve Jobs, as volatile a figure as a Shakespearean monarch . . . Based on interviews with dozens of insiders, The Pixar Touch examines the early wildcat years when computer animation was thought of as the lunatic fringe of the medium. We see the studio at work today; how its writers, directors, and animators make their astonishing, and astonishingly popular, films. The book also delves into Pixars corporate feuds: between Lasseter and his former champion, Jeffrey Katzenberg (A Bugs Life vs. Antz), and between Jobs and Michael Eisner. And finally it explores Pixars complex relationship with the Walt Disney Company as it transformed itself from a Disney satellite into the $7.4 billion jewel in the Disney crown. Little-Known Facts from The Pixar Touch: The Making of a Company by David Price Pixar, not Apple, made Steve Jobs a billionaire. Jobs bought Pixar in 1986 from Lucasfilm for $5 million. In 1995, the week after the release of Toy Story, Pixar went public and Jobss stock was worth $1.1 billion. Ed Catmull, Pixars co-founder, dreamed as a youth of becoming an animator, but decided in high school that he couldnt draw well enough. Instead, he became an early visionary of computer animation as a graduate student in the 1970s. "Computer animation was sort of on the lunatic fringe at that time," remembered Fred Parke, a fellow Ph.D. student in Catmulls class at the University of Utah. When John Lasseter joined Pixarwhich was then the computer graphics department of George Lucass Lucasfilmhe had just been fired from his dream job as an animator at Disney. He became the first person to apply classic Disney character animation principles to computer animation. Before it became an animation studio, Pixar went through years of struggle and multi-million-dollar losses. It started as a computer company and John Lasseters short films, such as Luxo Jr. and Tin Toy, were promotional films to help sell the companys computers. Pixar was almost bought by
Microsoft? Yep: Jobs remained worried about the companys finances even after Pixar made a deal with the Walt Disney Co. in 1991 to produce Toy Story, Pixars first feature film. The Pixar Touch details the effort to sell Pixar to Bill Gatess company while Toy Story was in production. When writing Toy Story, to find inspiration for the relationship between Buzz and Woody, Lasseter and his story department screened classic "buddy" movies, including 48 Hrs., The Defiant Ones, Midnight Run, and Thelma & Louise. John Lasseter has instilled an intense commitment to research in the studios creative staff. To prepare for the scene in Finding Nemo in which the fish characters Marlin and Dory become trapped in a whale, two members of the art department climbed inside a dead gray whale that had been stranded north of Marin, California. To learn how to make a realistic French kitchen, the producer and first director of Ratatouille worked as apprentices at an elite French restaurant in the Napa Valley. Pixar deliberately avoided making the humans in The Incredibles look too realistic. They knew that as animated human characters became too close to lifelike, audiences would actually perceive them as repulsive. The phenomenon, known as the "uncanny valley," had been predicted by a Japanese robotics researcher as early as 1970. Thus, the details of human skin, such as pores and hair follicles, were left out of The Incredibles characters in favor of a more cartoonlike appearance. The signature of most Pixar feature films is characters who appeal to children (toys, fish, monsters
), but who have adult-like personalities and are dealing with adult-like problems. Prior to the acquisition of Pixar by Disney in 2006, Lasseter loathed the idea of Disney making sequels to Pixar films without Pixars involvementas Disneys contract with Pixar allowed it to do. "These were the people that put out Cinderella II," Lasseter remarked. Pixar is more than an animation studio. Pixars innovations in computer graphics technology pervade movies today. Special-effects houses like Industrial Light & Magic (Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Mans Chest, The Chronicles of Narnia: The Lion, The Witch and The Wardrobe, Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix) use Pixars software to create out-of-this-world places and characters. (Photo © Simon Bruty)
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The only insiderâ²s account ever written on Americaâ²s most powerful weapon in the war against terrorism
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"The Engines of Pratt & Whitney: A Technical History" describes the evolution from piston engines to gas turbines by the engineers who created those engines. Included are hundreds of archival photographs, as well as over a dozen tables listing specifications and applications. The story starts with the founding of the company in the 1920s to provide reliable air-cooled piston engines to the military and to help create coast-to-coast commercial flight service. Pratt & Whitney quickly dominated commercial and military flight in the 1930s, ultimately providing half the horsepower of American engines during World War II. Jack Connors explains how Pratt & Whitney came from behind the competition in developing gas turbines after the war with the debut of the J57, which powered the B-52 in 1952 and later the Air Force Century Series fighters (F-100, F-101, and F-102) and the Navy A-3D, F-4D, and F-8 airplanes. Also covered is the development of the J58, which powered the Mach 3+ YF-12 and SR-71 aircraft and subsequent military engines; the F100 in the F-15 and F-16; the F119 in the F-22; and, the F135 in the F-35 series. Pratt & Whitney's contribution to the luxury commercial jet era travel is also detailed, with its JT3, JT3D, JT4, JT8D, JT9D, PW2000, PW4000, and PW6000 in Boeing, Douglas, and Airbus aircraft. This history of Pratt & Whitney's role in the evolution of aircraft engines from 1925 to the present day offers young engineers a wealth of insights about design, development, marketing, and product support for commercial and military customers.
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Every gluing and clamping method from new ways to use liquid glues and the newest epoxies that bond metal, to a fantastic array of clamps and devices. Step-by-step instructions with over 500 photos. Bonus: new projects, tips on making jigs and fixtures, more!
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After covering the environment and energy beat for more than a decade, columnist Amanda Little decided that the only way to fully understand America's energy crisis was to travel into the heart of it. So she embarked on a daring, cross-country power trip to the most extreme and exciting frontiers of our energy landscape. In Power Trip, we accompany her to a deep-sea oil rig, the cornfields of Kansas, the catacombs of the Pentagon, the Talladega Superspeedway, and inside New York City's electrical grid. We visit laboratories creating the innovations that will carry us into a clean-energy future. Little also travels back through history to investigate how America developed its unrivaled appetite for fossil fuels. In vivid, fast-paced prose, she illustrates how the same American ingenuity that got us into this mess can get us out of it too.
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The Thunderbird was originally designed to be small and racy with a unique look and personality that would set it apart from its contemporaries. Although never intended to be a sports car, it was only 52.1" high and its 102 wheelbase was an inch and a half shorter than that of the Model A! Luxurious enough for the most discriminating buyer, the 1955 model offered plush vinyl upholstery, "Astra Dial" control panel, adjustable steering wheel, tachometer and clock, all standard. Yet with its 292 cubic inch V-8 engine (rated at 198 horsepower), four barrel carburetor and dual exhausts, it was high-spirited enough for any enthusiast. The car was recognized immediately as a breakthrough in automotive engineering and design and soon developed a dedicate owner body. Although the original two-seated Thunderbird was manufactured for only three years, it was so advanced in concept that its influence in the automobile industry is still being felt today as the Ford Motor Company again presents its descendents. Despite many changes through the forty years leading to its demise in the mid-nineties and re-birth on 2001 Thunderbird retained its individuality and has earned its soubriquet "Unique in all the World". In these page one can revisit and enjoy another look at the unique world which is.... THUNDERBIRD!
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